I started the challenge on New Years day and immediately went up $1,700. It didn't last long and after a strange run I was $2,000 down. I did improve this to finish about $1,200 down on the day.

This has continued with me getting back to level then dropping back to -$1,000 etc. My poker tracker graph is crazy.

Anyway I was analysing my game after every session and I was well ahead in Sklansky bucks. My game was in ok shape. It was bad beat after bad beat. I will not list any here as this is not a bad beat blog and we all know they have to happen. But eventually things level out and good play gets rewarded.

And today my cards began to hold up. I lost a few big pots but overall things went well and I have finished the day being $1,639 up for the year. It may not seem a lot but it is bang on track almost exactly for what I want my minimum win to be for the year. So here are the stats up to now;

39,010 hands played
$1,639 profit
1.05 winrate (tracker BB100 rating)
33 hours played ($49/hr)
12.58 tables at a time (average)

18,188 vpp (1,000,000 required by end of year so nearly 2% complete)
77,450 fpp (each 250,000 is worth $4,000)

I will explain more about these figures in later posts but the points I have earned up to now (if I hit the 1million) are worth another $1,800.

Also today I cleared enough points and received a $4,000 bonus from the end of last years play.

So overall $1,639, $1,800 and $4,000.
The $1,800 will show itself over later months so it is not banked yet.
So I am listing my profit up to now as $5,639. Although it seems a lot for 5 days it only appears that way because of the 4k bonus. But it is exactly what I expected to this point and I am well happy with it.

I am also clearing another milestone bonus from the end of 2008 and that $4,000 should be achieved within a week.

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I explained what I was going to do in 2009 to quite a few people and some said they may also have a go at this. Well I know of 2 others who are hammering Stars. One is going for Elite and the other is going for about half Elite status so he won't maximise the full rakeback. I will keep you updated with those two also but not name them at the moment.

And finally a point of interest. There are a large number of people who don't play at Poker Stars because they don't get rakeback. But if you make some calculations you will be surprised at what you do get. I would be surprised if Stars doesn't beat any rakeback scheme you may be on.

In fact, if you are a very very high raker you can even get as much as 75% back. It will be about 65% for me this year if I achieve what I expect. And that would move up next year as once you hit Supernova Elite you get points faster.

Good luck to Animal who is sitting at Heathrow tonight en route to Aussie Millions. Wish I was going!